Sunday, November 25, 2007

Christmas Comes Early

I hope all my fellow Beer Geeks had a wondrous Thanksgiving. If you're like me you ate too much, drank too much, and watched too much football.

Wait a second... how the hell can the words "too much" ever be associated with any of those things?! ;)

So did anyone "man up" and venture forth to the malls on Black Friday to do some Christmas shopping? Again, if you're like me - you most certainly did not. Sorry, but I do all my shopping online. Dubba dubba dubba dot "buy it online" dot com baby! While "shopping" (from the comfort of my leather office chair, a steaming cup of java nearby) I happened to come across two fantastic beer items. One you can buy right now, the other you can dream about having - if/when it comes out.

Introducing... the roughly $4,000 "Device." Thanks to Popular Science staff photographer John Carnett, even the saddest of Brew Mixologists (that'd be me) would be able to brew and serve their own homemade beer. It took John several weeks to build what he calls "The Device": a stainless-steel two-cart brewing system that starts by boiling extract—concentrated wort, or pre-fermented beer—and ends with a chilled pint.


Oh sweet mother! With this thing even I could make a drinkable home brew. Unlike my fiasco earlier this year with the "Beer Machine." Granted, it's not being mass produced - yet, but you can bet your sweet bippy (what the hell is a "sweet bippy" anyway?) that someone somewhere will pony (keg) up the cash to buy the rights to this grand piece of machinery.

Check out how John assembled this beast:



I have problems tying my shoes some days. If I were to attempt to build this contraption I'd probably blow up my neighborhood. I think I'll stick to buying beer in bottles. Better yet... those new 5 liter mini-kegs. Cuz the fine folks at Hammaker Schlemmer have come up with what has to be the coolest beer related gizmo I've seen so far this year. May I present... The Countertop Beer Cooler and Tap! Wooooohooooo! Hallelujah! Are those angels I hear singing?

At a mere $299.95, this bad boy holds a 5-liter keg and has an integrated tap that lets you pour draft style beer at home! Guys like gizmos and flashing lights, and this thing has an array of LCD lights that display the exact temperature, while allowing true Beer Geeks to adjust the temp from 37 to 53 degrees. A pressure gauge regulates the CO2 content and even lets you alter the carbonation! It comes with an instructional DVD, tapping and cleaning kits, three 16-gram CO2 cartridges, and an overflow tray. To order one, clickety-click on over to Hamm-Schlem and order one here!

If you'll ecuse me... I have to go update my Chrismtas list and inform my better half of this newly found item of joy!

Until next time... keep the beer cold! Ya never know when I might stop by!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've seen this thing before and I can't for the life of me figure out why someone would spend so much money and energy on brewing extract beer. Homebrewing is much easier than you might think, and you can buy the equipment to do it "the right way" for under $500, easily.

You should start here: http://www.howtobrew.com

BTW- digging your blog!

Eli the Mad Man said...

Thanks Josh - for the kudos and the link! Like I said, I've dabbled in homebrewing ONCE, with bad equipment. And while it was fun waiting to see how it turned out, I'm not quite sure I'm up for dropping $400+ on what amounts to more "work." However, I'll keep doing some reading on the how to brew page if you keep pinging my blog! ;)